Third Impact Blues
by Sean Tucker
Summary: Post-3I SxA WAFF. T for bad language; no lemon or gore in here. It's about a month after EoE ended, and more people are starting to trickle back into the world. Shinji and Asuka are together now.


**Third Impact Blues**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Eva. I don't terribly want to, either, considering how Anno-san is utterly insane. I also don't own any of the songs that are used or will be used in this.

Shinji was a bit bored, to put it simply. He knew he should have been incredibly depressed, but... he was inexplicably bored. Third Impact had taken the lives of damned near everyone on the planet except for him and apparently Asuka, although if the giant naked Rei-Lilith-Yui hybrid thing wasn't lying, they could all just come back anyways. More free stuff for him in the meantime, especially since the main infrastructure was still working; at the very least he had electricity at Misato's old place.

He was currently drawing his life story as a manga. He had taken to doing this as a way to pass time when Asuka wasn't around; he had given the manga the working title of "Neon Genesis Evangelion," and he planned to release it when enough people started coming out of the LCL ocean. He was also blasting some music on a stereo that he had looted from an electronics shop in old Tokyo-2; he had made a mix CD of music he remembered liking, and the current song was The Fragile by Nine Inch Nails.

_I wonder if it's somehow bad that I'm hoping to God Trent Reznor comes out of the LCL soon,_ Shinji thought. The current chapter of the manga he was writing was a dramatization of the events leading to Third Impact; he decided to make it so that the Mass Production Evangelion units didn't kill Asuka, simply because writing what actually happened would be too damned painful. This also made the song playing especially appropriate; he felt it described Asuka perfectly. As one could easily tell from the events, he was in love with Asuka Langley Soryu. Unbeknownst to him, she loved him just as much; she just never managed to spit it out, so to speak.

Asuka walked in, cradling a bag of various foods she had gotten from a now-abandoned grocery store with her good arm. It wasn't anything special, just everyday stuff they needed to have.

"Nice music there, third-man. Never took you to be a Nine Inch Nails fan," Asuka said in her usual deadpan tone. She managed to somewhat startle Shinji, who wasn't paying a whole ton of attention.

"Oh, hey, Asuka. Word of advice, don't call me third-man. You know I hate that nickname," Shinji said.

"Okay, third-man," Asuka teased. Shinji's face turned red and he was suddenly tempted to hurl the nearest large object at her.

Asuka walked up to Shinji.

"Shinji-kun, there's something I've been meaning to tell you for a long while now..." Asuka said with an uncharacteristically gentle inflection.

"What is it?" Shinji was a bit confused, but he decided to press the issue anyways.

Asuka took a deep breath.

"Shinji-kun... I love you."

Those three words were the absolute greatest thing Shinji had heard in the time that he had known Asuka. He stood up.

"You serious? No bullshit?" Shinji asked.

"No bullshit." Asuka smiled for the first time since Third Impact. Shinji put his arms around her waist and kissed her.

"I love you too, Asuka-chan," Shinji said softly. Asuka was somewhat taken aback by how easy it was for Shinji to respond; any ordinary person would have fainted several times over. But this was no ordinary person. This was Shinji Ikari.

Shinji Ikari, the coward, had turned into Shinji Ikari, the maniac.

Shinji Ikari, the maniac, had turned into Shinji Ikari, her savior.

Shinji Ikari, her savior, had chosen to turn into Shinji Ikari, her lover.

Shinji chuckled a bit. "You know, Asuka... you're still as beautiful as ever with an eyepatch and a fucked-up arm."

Asuka lightly punched Shinji on the back for that. The reaction was a short grunt of pain from Shinji; he had gotten a sunburn on his back from before she showed up, and the punch was right on the center of it.

"Sorry... baka-Shinji," Asuka said with a smile. "I also stopped by an electronics shop and got us some movies to watch. We already have a Blu-Ray player and a TV, so I figured it's better than nothing. Wanna help carry them in?"

"Sure, Asuka. Here I was thinking I was going to die of boredom," Shinji said jokingly. He followed her back to a car he had found in good condition, refueled, and brought back to Misato's old apartment. He opened the trunk, and marveled at the massive amount of stuff she had gotten. There was several days worth of movies in there, as well as a few anime series and a season of Doctor Who.

_Wait, what? _Shinji thought. _A season of Doctor Who? How did she..._

"Holy crap, Asuka! How did you know I was a Doctor Who fan?" Shinji asked incredulously.

Asuka palmed her face with her good arm.

"Oh, wait, sorry. Brain fart there," Shinji said as he loaded a bag with movies. "So, which one of these you wanna watch first?"

Asuka beamed and grabbed the movie Akira. Shinji smiled a bit; he had seen part of the movie when he was much younger, due to his uncle being somewhat of an otaku.

"Sounds like a good idea to me," Shinji said. He carried the bag in, set it down, and put the disc for Akira in the Blu-Ray player that resided in Misato's apartment. They sat down on the couch and began watching it, Asuka resting her head in Shinji's lap.

"Boo," an unknown voice said from behind the two, causing Asuka to bolt upwards and Shinji to jump a foot in the air.

"What the FUCK​!?" Shinji exclaimed as he turned around and saw a face that was rather familiar to him, to say the least.

"I thought you were-"

**Next chapter:** An unknown visitor. Three guesses as to who it is.


End file.
